Value of card transactions dips to 9-month low, says report

Even as most banks have reported a raise in transactions involving swipe-cards after demonetisation step was announced on November 8.

As per the SBI Research report data, the credit and debit card transactions at PoS fall to Rs 35,240 crore in value terms for November.

Even as most banks have reported a raise in transactions involving swipe-cards after demonetisation step was announced on November 8 in an address to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there has been a dip in the total value of these transactions. The use of debit and credit cards at point of sale terminals fall to a nine-month low in value terms last month and saw a sharp decrease of 31 per cent over that in October, a report by ‘The Indian Express’ has said.

As per the SBI Research report data, the credit and debit card transactions at PoS fall to Rs 35,240 crore in value terms for November which is the lowest since February this year when the aggregate spend on PoS terminals was around Rs 33,600 crore.The November’s dip came even while the amount spent at PoS terminals grew constatntly this calendar from Rs 33,230 crore in January to Rs 51,116 crore in October in the current year. Even till December 13 card spend on PoS remained low and amounted to Rs 18,130 crore.

While speaking to the paper, group chief economic adviser of State Bank of India Soumya Kanti Ghosh, said that the fall in consumption could be one of the possible reasons as people were uncertain about spending after the announcement and with December figures look down, the government need to see how it can be improvedas it could have an impact on growth.Even as spend on cards fall last month due to cash crunch, Ghosh said, there was a surge in mobile banking transactions by almost 10 per cent over the previous month and it rose to Rs 1,24,500 crore in November.